Chapter nine how Great-Uncle William's house proved to have many ways

Peter and Charmain naturally converged on the fireplace then. Waif scuttled out of the way as, one after another, they beat on the mantelpiece and cried out, "Breakfast!" But it seemed that this spell only worked properly in the morning.

"I wouldn't even have minded kippers," Charmain said, miserably surveying the two trays. They had rolls, honey, and orange juice on them, and nothing else.

"I know how to boil eggs," Peter said. "Will Waif eat this lamb chop?"

"She'll eat almost anything," Charmain said. "She's as bad as—as we are. I don't think she'll eat a turnip, though. I wouldn't."

They had a somewhat unsatisfactory supper. Peter's eggs were—well—solid. In order to take Charmain's mind off them, Peter asked her about her time in the Royal Mansion. Charmain told him, in order to take both their minds off the way hard boiled eggs did not mix with honey. Peter was highly intrigued by the way the King seemed to be looking for gold, and even more intrigued by the arrival of Morgan and Twinkle.

"And a fire demon?" he said. "Two infants with magical powers and a fire demon! I bet the Princess has her hands full. How long are they staying?"

"I don't know. Nobody said," Charmain said.

"Then I bet you two Afternoon Teas and a Morning Coffee that the Princess turns them out before the weekend," Peter said. "Have you finished eating? Then I want you to look through your Great-Uncle's suitcase."

"But I want to read a book!" Charmain protested.

"No, you don't," Peter said. "You can do that any time. This suitcase is full of stuff you need to know. I'll show you." He pushed the breakfast trays aside and pulled the suitcase in front of her. Charmain sighed and put her glasses on.

The suitcase was full to the brim with paper. Lying on top was a note in Great-Uncle William's beautiful but shaky writing. "For Charmain," it said. "Key to the House." Under that was a large sheet of paper with a tangle of swirly lines drawn on it. The lines had labeled boxes drawn on them at intervals, and each line ended in an arrow at the edge of the page, with the word "Unexplored" written beside it.

"That's the short key you've got there," Peter said as Charmain picked this paper up. "The rest of the stuff in the suitcase is the proper map. It folds out. Look." He took hold of the next sheet of paper and pulled, and it came out with the next sheet joined to it, and then the next, folded back and forth to fit in the suitcase. It came out on to the table in a huge zigzag. Charmain stared at it resentfully. Each piece had carefully drawn rooms and corridors on it and neatly written notes beside each thing. The notes said things like "Turn left twice here" and "Two steps right and one left here." The rooms had blocks of writing in them, some simple, like "Kitchen," and some eloquent, like the one that read "My store of wizardly supplies, kept constantly replenished by an intake spell I am rather proud of. Please note that the ingredients on the left hand wall are all highly dangerous and must be handled with great care." And some of the joined sheets seemed to be all criss-crossing corridors labeled "To unexplored North Section," "To Kobolds," "To Main Cistern" or "To Ballroom: I doubt if we shall ever find a use for this."

"I was quite right to leave this suitcase shut," Charmain said. "It's the most confusing map I ever saw in my life! It can't all be this house!"

"It is. It's enormous," Peter said. "And if you look, you'll see that the way the map is folded is a clue to how you get to the different parts of it. See, here's the living room on the top page, but if you go to the next page, you don't get his study or the bedrooms because those are folded back, see. You get the kitchen instead because that's folded the same way…."

Charmain's head began to go round, and she closed her ears to Peter's enthusiastic explanations. She looked at the swirling lines on the piece of paper in her hand instead. It almost seemed easier. At least, she could see "Kitchen" right in the middle of it, and "Bedrooms" and "Swimming Pool" and "Study." Swimming Pool? Not really, surely? An interesting swirl led off to the right, underneath these boxes, into a tangle containing a box labeled "Conference Room." An arrow pointed off from this box labeled "To Royal Mansion."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You can get to the King's house from here!"

"…out to a mountain meadow that says 'Stables,' but I can't see how to get there from his workroom yet," Peter expounded, unfolding another zigzag. "And here's 'Food Store.' It says 'Stasis Spells operate.' I wonder how you take those off. But what interests me are the places like this one, where he's written 'Storage Space. Just Junk? Must investigate someday.' Do you think he created all this bent space himself? Or did he find it already there when he moved in?"

"He found it," Charmain said. "You can tell by these arrows that say 'Unexplored' that he doesn't know what's out there yet."

"You may be right," Peter said judiciously. "He really only uses the middle bits, doesn't he? We can do him a favor by exploring more of it."

"You can if you like," Charmain said. "I'm going to read my book." She folded up the paper with the swirly lines on it and stowed it in her pocket. This could save her a journey in the morning.

* * *

In the morning, Charmain's good clothes were still damp. She had to leave them draped depressingly around her room and get into her next-nicest, while she wondered if she could manage to leave Waif behind with Peter today. Perhaps not. Suppose Peter tried another spell and contrived to turn Waif inside out or something.

Waif of course came trotting eagerly after Charmain into the kitchen. Charmain tapped the fireplace for dog food and then, a little doubtfully, for her own breakfast. It could be that she and Peter had thrown the spell out by demanding breakfast yesterday evening.

But no. Today she got a full tray, with a choice of tea or coffee, and toast, and a plate piled high with something made with fish and rice, and a peach to follow. I think the spell's apologizing, she thought. She didn't like the fish stuff much, so she gave most of it to Waif, who liked it the way she always liked food and smelled quite fishy as she trotted after Charmain when Charmain unfolded her swirly paper, ready to go to the Royal Mansion.

Looking at the swirls confused Charmain. She found she had been even more confused by the chart in the suitcase. Bending the paper backward and forward to try and reproduce what was in the suitcase did not help at all. After several turns left and right, she found herself walking into a place that was large and well lighted by big windows overlooking the river. There was a fine view of the town across the river, where, most frustratingly, she could see the golden roof of the Royal Mansion gleaming in the sunlight.

"But I'm trying to get there, not here!" she said, looking around.

There were long wooden tables under the windows, loaded with strange implements and more implements stacked in the middle of the room. The other walls were full of shelves piled with jars, tins, and odd-shaped glassware. Charmain sniffed the smell of new wood here, which was overlaid by the same thunderstorm-and-spice smell she had noticed in Great-Uncle William's study. The smell of magic having been done, she thought. This must be his workroom. To judge by the way Waif was trotting cheerily about, Waif knew this place well.

"Come on, Waif," Charmain said, pausing to look at a piece of paper on top of the strange implements in the middle of the room. It said, "Please do not touch." "Let's go back to the kitchen and start again."

It did not work out that way. A left turn from the workroom door brought them into a warm, warm place open to the sky, where a small blue pool rippled amid white stone surrounds. The place was fenced off by white stone trellises with roses growing up them, and there were white reclining chairs beside the roses, piled with large fluffy towels. Ready for when you'd finished swimming, Charmain supposed. But poor Waif was terrified of this place. She crouched against the gateway, whining and trembling.

Charmain picked her up. "Did someone try to drown you, Waif? Were you a puppy someone didn't want? It's all right. I'm not going near this water either. I've no idea how to swim." As she turned left through the gateway, it occurred to her that swimming was only one of a very large number of things she had no idea how to do. Peter had been right to object to her ignorance. "It's not that I'm lazy," she explained to Waif as they arrived in what seemed to be the stables, "or stupid. I've just not bothered to look round the edges of Mother's way of doing things, you see."

The stables were rather smelly. Charmain was relieved to see that the horses that must belong there were up in a meadow beyond a fence. Horses were another thing she had no idea about. At least Waif did not seem to be frightened here.

Charmain sighed, put Waif down, scrabbled up her glasses, and looked at the confusing swirly chart again. "Stables" were here, up in the mountains somewhere. She needed two right turns from there to the kitchen again. She turned right twice, with Waif pattering behind, and found herself in near dark outside what seemed to be a large cave full of hurrying blue kobolds. Each one of them turned and glowered at Charmain. Charmain hurriedly turned right again. And this time she was in a store for cups, plates, and teapots. Waif whined. Charmain stared at several hundred teapots, in rows on shelves, of every possible color and size, and began to panic. It was getting late. Worse than that, when she put her glasses on again and consulted the plan, she found she was somewhere near the bottom left-hand part of the swirls, where the arrow pointing off to the edge had a note that said "A group of lubbockins live down this way. Care necessary."

"Oh," Charmain exclaimed. "This is ridiculous! Come on, Waif." She opened the door they had just come through and turned right yet again.

This time they were in complete darkness. Charmain could feel Waif nosing anxiously up against her ankles. Both of them sniffed and Charmain said, "Ah!" This place had a damp stone smell that she remembered from the day she had arrived in the house. "Great-Uncle William," she asked, "how do I get from here to the kitchen again?"

Much to her relief, the kindly voice answered. It sounded very faint and far away now. "If you are there, my dear, you are rather lost, so listen carefully. Make one turn clockwise…"

Charmain had no need to listen anymore. Instead of making a complete turn, she turned carefully halfway and then peered forward. Sure enough, there was a dimly lighted stone corridor ahead, crossing the one she seemed to be standing in. She strode thankfully toward it, with Waif trotting behind her, and turned into that corridor. She knew she was now in the Royal Mansion. It was the same corridor where she had seen Sim pushing a trolley on her first day in Great-Uncle William's house. Not only did it smell right—with faint foody smells on top of the damp stone smell—but the walls had the typical Royal Mansion look, with lighter squares and oblongs where pictures had been taken away. The only trouble was that she had no idea whereabouts in the Mansion this was. Waif was no help. She simply plastered herself against Charmain's ankles and shivered.

Charmain picked Waif up and walked down the corridor, hoping to find somewhere she knew. She turned two corners without being any the wiser and then almost ran into the colorless gentleman who had passed the crumpets round yesterday. He jumped backward, thoroughly startled.

"Dear me," he said, peering at Charmain in the gloom. "I had no idea you had arrived yet, Miss…er…Charming, is it? Are you lost? Can I assist?"

"Yes, please," Charmain said resourcefully. "I went to the…to the…er…um…you know, the one for ladies—and I must have turned the wrong way afterward. Can you tell me the way back to the library?"

"I can do better than that," said the colorless gentleman. "I'll show you. Just follow me."

He turned round and led the way back where he had been coming from, along another dim corridor and across a large, cold lobby, where a flight of stone stairs led upward. Waif's tail began to twitch slightly, as if she found this part familiar. But her tail stopped moving as they crossed in front of the stairs. Morgan's voice came booming down from the top of the flight.

"Don't want to! Don't want! Don't WANT!"

Twinkle's shriller voice joined in. "I can't wear thethe! I want my thtwipey oneth!"

Sophie Pendragon's voice echoed down too. "Be quiet, both of you! Or I'll do something dreadful, I warn you! I've no patience left!"

The colorless gentleman winced. He said to Charmain, "Small children bring so much life to a place, don't they?"

Charmain looked up at him, meaning to nod and grin. But something made her shudder instead. She was not sure why. She managed to give a little nod and that was all, before she followed the gentleman through an archway, where the booming of Morgan and the screaming of Twinkle died away into the distance.

Round another corner, the colorless gentleman opened a door that Charmain recognized as the door to the library. "Miss Charming seems to have arrived, Sire," he said, bowing.

"Oh, good," said the King, looking up from a pile of thin leather books. "Come in and sit down, my dear. I found an absolute heap of papers for you last night. I'd no idea we had so many."

Charmain felt as if she had never been away. Waif settled down, rolled tummy upward in the heat from the brazier. Charmain settled down also, in front of a toppling heap of different-sized papers, found pen and paper, and started in. It was very companionable.

After a while, the King said, "This ancestor of mine, who wrote these diaries, fancied himself as a poet. What do you think of this one? To his lady love, of course.

'You dance with the grace of a goat, my love,
And you sing soft like a cow on the mountains.'

"Would you call that romantic, my dear?"

Charmain laughed. "It's dreadful. I hope she threw him over. Er…Your Majesty, who is the color…er…the gentleman who showed me in just now?"

"You mean my steward?" the King said. "Do you know, he's been with us for years and years and years—and I can never remember the poor fellow's name. You'll have to ask the Princess, my dear. She remembers things like that."

Oh, well, Charmain thought. I shall just have to think of him as the colorless gentleman, then.

The day passed peacefully. It made, Charmain felt, a pleasant change after such a hectic start. She sorted out, and made notes about, bills from two hundred years ago, bills from one hundred years ago, and bills from a mere forty years back. Oddly enough, the older bills were for much larger sums of money than the newer ones. It looked as if the Royal Mansion was spending less and less. Charmain also sorted out letters from four hundred years back and more recent reports from ambassadors, from Strangia, Ingary, and even Rajpuht. Some ambassadors sent poems. Charmain read the worst ones out to the King. Farther down the stack, she came upon receipts. Papers saying things like "In payment for portrait of a lady, reputed to be by a grand master, 200 guineas" began to turn up more and more frequently, all from the last sixty years. It looked to Charmain as if the Royal Mansion had been selling its pictures for most of the King's reign. She decided not to ask the King about it.

Lunch arrived, more of Jamal's delicious spicy things. When Sim brought them, Waif jumped up, wagging her tail, stopped, looked disappointed, and trotted away out of the library. Charmain had no idea if it was the cook's dog or lunch that Waif wanted. Lunch, probably.

As Sim put the platter on the table, the King asked jovially, "How are things going out there now, Sim?"

"A little noisily, Sire," Sim replied. "We have just received our sixth rocking horse. Master Morgan seems desirous of a live monkey, which, I am glad to report, Mrs. Pendragon has refused to allow him to have. A certain uproar resulted. In addition, Master Twinkle seems convinced that someone is denying him a pair of stripey trousers. He has been very loud on the subject all morning, Sire. And the fire demon has adopted the fire in the front parlor as his roosting place of choice. Will you be taking tea with us in the front parlor today, Sire?"

"I think not," the King said. "I've nothing against the fire demon, but it gets a bit crowded in there with all those rocking horses. Be good enough to fetch us some crumpets here to the library, if you will, Sim."

"Certainly, Sire," Sim said, shakily backing from the room.

When the door was shut, the King said to Charmain, "It's not the rocking horses, really. And I quite like the noise. But it all makes me think how much I'd have enjoyed being a grandfather. Pity, that."

"Er…," said Charmain, "people in town always say that Princess Hilda was disappointed in love. Is that why she never married?"

The King seemed surprised. "Not that I know of," he said. "She had princes and dukes lining up to marry her for years when she was younger. But she's not the marrying kind. Never fancied the idea, so she tells me. Prefers her life here, helping me. It's a pity, though. Here's my heir having to be Prince Ludovic, my fool of a cousin's son. You'll meet him soon, if we can only move a rocking horse or so—or maybe she'll use the Grand Parlor instead. But the real pity is that there are no more youngsters around the Mansion nowadays. I miss that."

The King did not seem too unhappy. He looked matter-of-fact rather than mournful, but Charmain was suddenly struck by what a sad place the Royal Mansion really was. Huge, empty, and sad. "I understand, Your Majesty," she said.

The King grinned and bit into a Jamal tasty. "I know you do," he said. "You're a very intelligent young lady. You'll do your Great-Uncle William great credit one day."

Charmain blinked a bit at this description. But before she could get too uncomfortable at being praised, she realized what the King had left out. I may be clever, she thought, quite sadly, but I'm not in the least kind or sympathetic. I think I may even be hard-hearted. Look at the way I treat Peter.

She brooded on this for the rest of the afternoon. The result was that, when it was time to stop for the day and Sim reappeared with Waif wandering along after him, Charmain stood up and said, "Thank you for being so good to me, Your Majesty."

The King seemed surprised and told her to think nothing of it. But I do, Charmain thought. He's been so kind that it should be a lesson to me. As she followed Sim's slow totter, with Waif, who seemed very sleepy and fat, toiling along behind both of them, Charmain made a resolution to be kind to Peter when she got back to Great-Uncle William's house.

Sim had almost reached the front door, when Twinkle came rushing past from somewhere, energetically bowling a large hoop. He was followed at speed by Morgan, holding both arms out and bellowing, "Oop, oop, OOP!" Sim was sent reeling. Charmain tried to flatten herself against the wall as Twinkle shot past. There was an instant when she thought that Twinkle gave her a strange, searching look as he whipped by, but a yelp from Waif sent her speeding to the rescue and she thought no more about it. Waif had been knocked upside down and was very upset about it. Charmain scooped her up and nearly ran into Sophie Pendragon, chasing after Morgan.

"Which way?" Sophie panted.

Charmain pointed. Sophie hauled her skirts high and raced off, muttering something about guts and garters as she ran.

Princess Hilda appeared in the distance and stopped to drag Sim to his feet. "I really do apologize, Miss Charming," she said as Charmain reached her. "That child is like an eel—well, they both are, actually. I shall have to take steps, or poor Sophie will have no attention left for our problems. Are you steady now, Sim?"

"Perfectly, ma'am," said Sim. He bowed to Charmain and let her out through the front door into bright afternoon sunlight, as if nothing had happened.

If I ever marry, Charmain thought, striding across Royal Square with Waif in her arms, I shall never have children. They would make me cruel and hard-hearted after a week. Perhaps I shall be like Princess Hilda and never marry. That way, I might stand a chance of learning to be kind. Anyway, I shall practice on Peter, because he's truly hard work.

She was full of sternly kind resolve when she reached Great-Uncle William's house. It helped, as she marched up the path between the ranks of blue hydrangeas, that there was no sign of Rollo. Being kind to Rollo was something Charmain was sure she could never do.

"Not humanly possible," she remarked to herself as she put Waif down on the living room carpet. The room struck her as being unusually clean and tidy. Everything was orderly, from the suitcase neatly put back beside one of the armchairs to the vase of variously colored hydrangeas on the coffee table. Charmain frowned at this vase. It was surely the one that had disappeared when it was put on the trolley. Maybe Peter ordered Morning Coffee and it came back then, she thought—rather vaguely, because she suddenly remembered that she had left damp clothing all over her bedroom and bedclothes trailing over the floor. Bother! I have to tidy up.

She stopped short in the doorway of her bedroom. Someone had made her bed. Her clothes, dry now, were neatly folded on top of the chest of drawers. It was an outrage. Feeling anything but kind, Charmain stormed into the kitchen.

Peter was sitting at the kitchen table, looking so virtuous that Charmain knew he had been up to something. Behind him, on the fire, a large black pot was bubbling out strange, weak, savory smells.

"What do you mean by tidying up my room?" Charmain demanded.

Peter looked injured, even though Charmain could tell he was full of secret, exciting thoughts. "I thought you'd be pleased," he said.

"Well, I'm not!" Charmain said. She was surprised to find herself almost in tears. "I was just beginning to learn that if I drop something on the floor it stays dropped unless I pick it up, and if I make a mess I have to clear it away because it doesn't go by itself, and then you go and clear it up for me! You're as bad as my mother!"

"I've got to do something while I'm alone here all day," Peter protested. "Or do you expect me to just sit here?"

"You can do anything you like," Charmain yelled. "Dance. Stand on your head. Make faces at Rollo. But don't spoil my learning process!"

"Feel free to learn," Peter retorted. "You've got a long way to go. I won't touch your room again. Are you interested in some of the things I've learned today? Or are you thoroughly self-centered?"

Charmain gulped. "I was meaning to be kind to you this evening, but you make it very difficult."

"My mother says difficulties help you learn," Peter said. "You should be pleased. I'll tell you one thing I've learned today, and that's how to get enough supper." He pointed with his thumb to the bubbling pot. That thumb had a piece of green string round it. The other thumb had red string and one of his fingers was decorated with blue string.

He's been trying to go in three directions at once, Charmain thought. Striving mightily to sound friendly, she said, "How do you get enough supper, then?"

"I kept banging on the pantry door," Peter said, "until enough things landed on the table. Then I put them in that pot to boil."

Charmain looked at the pot. "What things?"

"Liver and bacon," Peter said. "Cabbage. More turnips and a chunk of rabbit. Onions, two more chops, and a leek. It was easy, really."

Yuk! thought Charmain. In order not to say something really rude, she turned round to go to the living room.

Peter called after her, "Don't you want to know how I got that vase of flowers back?"

"You sat on the trolley," Charmain said coldly, and went away to read The Twelve-Branched Wand.

But it was no good. She kept looking up and seeing that vase of hydrangeas and then looking over at the trolley and wondering if Peter had truly sat there and vanished away with an Afternoon Tea. Then wondering how he had got back. And every time she looked, she was more aware that her resolve to be kind to Peter had come to absolutely nothing. She stood it for nearly an hour and then went back to the kitchen. "I apologize," she said. " How did you get the flowers back?"

Peter was prodding at the stuff in the pot with a spoon. "I don't think this is ready yet," he said. "This spoon bounces off."

"Oh, come on," Charmain said. "I'm being polite."

"I'll tell you over supper," Peter said.

He kept his word, maddeningly. He hardly said a word for an hour, until the contents of the pot had been shared into two bowls. Dividing the food was not easy, because Peter had not bothered to peel anything or cut it up before he put it in the pot. They had to hack the cabbage apart with two spoons. Nor had Peter remembered that a stew needs salt. Everything—white, soggy bacon, hunk of rabbit, whole turnip, and flabby onion—floated in weak watery juice. To put it mildly, the food was quite horrible. Doing her best to be kind, Charmain did not say it was.

The only good thing was that Waif liked it. That is to say, she lapped up the weak juice and then carefully ate the meaty bits out from among the cabbage. Charmain did much the same and tried not to shudder. She was glad to take her mind off it by listening to what Peter had to tell.

"Are you aware," he began, rather pompously, to Charmain's mind. But she could tell that he had everything worked out in his mind like a story and was going to tell it just as he had it worked out. "Are you aware that when things vanish from the trolley, they go back into the past?"

"Well, I suppose the past makes quite a good waste dump," Charmain said. "As long as you make sure it really is past and things don't turn up again all moldy—"

"Do you want to hear or not?" Peter demanded.

Be kind, Charmain told herself. She ate another piece of nasty cabbage and nodded.

"And that parts of this house are in the past?" Peter continued. "I didn't sit on the trolley, you know. I just went exploring with a list of the ways I needed to turn, and I found out by accident, really. I must have turned the wrong way once or twice."

Doesn't surprise me, Charmain thought.

"Anyway," said Peter, "I got to a place where there were hundreds of kobold ladies all washing teapots and stacking food on trays for breakfasts and teas and things. And I was a bit nervous of them, because of the way you'd annoyed them over the hydrangeas, but I tried to look pleasant as I went by and nodded and smiled and things. And I was really surprised when they all nodded and smiled back and said 'Good morning' in a perfectly friendly way. So I went on nodding and smiling and walking past, until I came to a room I hadn't seen before. As soon as I opened the door, the first thing I saw was that vase of flowers sitting on the front of a long, long table. The next thing I saw was Wizard Norland, sitting behind the table—"

"Good gracious!" said Charmain.

"It surprised me too," Peter admitted. "I just stood there and stared, to tell the truth. He looked quite healthy—you know, strong and pink, and he had a lot more hair than I remembered—and he was busy working on the chart that was in the suitcase. He had it all spread out along the table and he'd only filled in about a quarter of it. I suppose that gave me a clue. Anyway, he looked up and said, quite politely, 'Would you mind closing the door? There's quite a draft.' Then before I could say anything, he looked up again and said, 'Who on earth are you?'

"I said, 'I'm Peter Regis.'

"That made him frown. He said, 'Regis, Regis? Does that make you some relation of the Witch of Montalbino, perhaps?'

"'She's my mother,' I said.

"And he said, 'I didn't think she had any children.'

"'She only has me,' I said. 'My dad was killed in a big avalanche at Transmontain just after I was born.'

"He frowned some more and said, 'But that avalanche was only last month, young man. They're saying that a lubbock set it off and it certainly killed a lot of people—or are we talking about the avalanche forty years ago?' And he looked very stern and disbelieving at me.

"I wondered how I could make him believe what had happened. I said, 'I promise it's true. Some of your house must go back in time. It's where the Afternoon Teas disappear to. And—this should prove it—we put that vase of flowers on the trolley the other day and it came back here to you.' He looked at the vase, but he didn't say anything. I said, 'I came here to your house because my mother arranged for me to be your apprentice.'

"He said, 'Did she indeed? I must have been wanting to oblige her quite badly then. You don't seem to me to have any remarkable talent.'

"'I can do magic,' I said, 'but my mother can arrange anything when she wants to.'

"He said, 'True. She has a remarkably forceful personality. What did I say when you turned up?'

"'You didn't,' I said. 'You weren't there. A girl called Charmain Baker was looking after your house—or she was supposed to be, but she went off and worked for the King and met a fire demon—'

"He interrupted me then, looking shocked. 'A fire demon? Young man, those are very dangerous beings. Are you telling me that the Witch of the Waste will be in High Norland before long?'

"'No, no,' I said. 'One of the Royal Wizards in Ingary did for the Witch of the Waste nearly three years ago now. This one was something to do with the King, Charmain said. I suppose she's only just born from your point of view, but she said you were ill and the elves carried you off to cure you and her Aunt Sempronia arranged for Charmain to look after the house while you were gone.'

"He looked quite upset about this. He sat back in his chair and blinked a bit. 'I have a great-niece called Sempronia,' he said, sort of slowly and thinking about it. 'This could be so. Sempronia has married into a very respectable family, I believe—'

"'Oh, they are!' I said. 'You should just see Charmain's mother. She's so respectable she doesn't let Charmain do anything.'"

Thank you very much, Peter! Charmain thought. Now he thinks I'm a complete waste of space!

"But he wasn't really interested," Peter went on. "He wanted to know what had made him ill and I couldn't tell him. Do you know?" he asked Charmain. Charmain shook her head. Peter shrugged and said, "Then he sighed, and said he supposed it didn't matter, because it seemed to have been unavoidable. But after that, he said, quite pathetically and all puzzled, 'But I don't know any elves!'

"I said, 'Charmain said it was the King who sent the elves.'

"'Oh,' he said, and he looked much happier. 'Of course it would be! The royal family has elf blood—several of them married elves and the elves do keep up the connection, I believe.' Then he looked at me and said, 'So this story begins to hang together.'

"I said, 'Well it should do. It's all true. But what I don't understand is what you did to make the kobolds so angry with you.'

"'Nothing, I assure you,' he said. 'Kobolds are my friends, they have been for years. They do a great many tasks for me. I would no more anger a kobold than I would anger my friend the King.'

"He seemed annoyed enough about this that I thought I'd better change the subject. I said, 'Then can I ask you about this house? Did you build it or find it?'

"'Oh, found it,' he said. 'Or at least I bought it when I was quite a young, struggling wizard, because it seemed small and cheap. Then I found it was a labyrinth of many ways. It was a delightful discovery, I can tell you. It seems once to have belonged to a Wizard Melicot, the same man who made the roof of the Royal Mansion appear to be gold. I have always hoped that, somewhere inside this house, there is hidden the actual gold that was in the Royal Treasury at the time. The King has been looking for that for years, you know.'

"And you can guess how that made me prick up my ears," Peter said. "But I never got to ask any more, because he said, looking at the vase on the table, 'So these are really flowers from the future, then? Do you mind telling me what sort they are?'

"I was quite astonished he didn't know. I told him they were hydrangeas from his own garden. 'The colored ones the kobolds cut off,' I said. And he looked at them and murmured that they were quite magnificent, particularly the way they were so many different colors. 'I shall have to start growing them for myself,' he said. 'They have more colors than roses.'

"'You can get them to grow blue too,' I said. 'My mother uses a spell with copper powder for ours.' And while he was murmuring about that, I asked him if I could take them back with me, so that I could prove to you that I'd met him.

"'Certainly, certainly,' he said. 'They are rather in the way here. And tell your young lady who knows the fire demon that I hope to have my chart of the house finished by the time she is grown up enough to need it.'

"So," Peter said, "I took the flowers and came away. Wasn't that extraordinary!"

"Very," said Charmain. "He wouldn't have grown hydrangeas if the kobolds hadn't cut them off and I hadn't picked them up and you hadn't got lost—It makes my head go round." She pushed aside her bowlful of cabbage and turnip. I shall be nice to him. I shall, I shall! "Peter, how would it be if I called in on my father on my way home tomorrow and asked him for a cookery book? He must have hundreds. He's the best cook in town."

Peter looked utterly relieved. "Good idea," he said. "My mother's never told me much about cooking. She always does it all."

And I shan't object to the way he's made Great-Uncle William think of me, Charmain vowed. I shall be kind. But if he does that once again…

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16